There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:

1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
(note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
perhaps empires could last a millennium).

2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

On Sat, 01 Oct 2022 22:11:22 -0700, Robert Woodward wrote:

> There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For
> example:
>
> 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> perhaps empires could last a millennium).
>
> 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.

Uh oh. Always look up "List of XXX" after pondering questions
like this! Wikipedia "List of empires" sorted by age shows
eight longer than 1000 years, and a lot more longer than
500 in a classic Zipf distribution.

In article <robertaw-976376.22112201102022@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
>There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
>across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
>
>1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
>many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
>or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
>of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
>outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
>can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
>(note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
>perhaps empires could last a millennium).
>
>2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
>presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>

Well, in SF there are complicating factors. Isher, for example,
survived because its unwritten constitution let the Weapon Shops
play the "second consul" role in a way, and because a covert immortal
was looking out for it.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article <Ezb_K.472013$6Il8.297091@fx14.iad>,
Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 01 Oct 2022 22:11:22 -0700, Robert Woodward wrote:
>
> > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> > across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For
> > example:
> >
> > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> > many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> > or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> > of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> > outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> > can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> > perhaps empires could last a millennium).
> >
> > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>
> Uh oh. Always look up "List of XXX" after pondering questions
> like this! Wikipedia "List of empires" sorted by age shows
> eight longer than 1000 years, and a lot more longer than
> 500 in a classic Zipf distribution.

I am utterly unimpressed with their list. Besides some double dipping,
that list has nation states that had external possessions for a shorter
period than the time cited for the "empire's" existence. I checked a few
of the longer durations and, AFAICT, their imperial phase only lasted 2
or 3 centuries.* Also, a number of those empires were hollow shells for
some time before their final extinction.

*For example, the Chola empire only really started in the 9th century
(the nation had been around for over millennium at the time). It appears
that the decline started about 2 centuries later.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 1:11:29 AM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:

> 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.

A large percentage of the stories we read in today's news do not mention
children. Keeping children out of sight and out of the way of important
events doesn't strike me as unbelievable.

In article <17dc05dd-7699-49fc-9c61-a98bc6bc5865n@googlegroups.com>,
Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 1:11:29 AM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
>
> > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>
> A large percentage of the stories we read in today's news do not mention
> children. Keeping children out of sight and out of the way of important
> events doesn't strike me as unbelievable.

It is not a general observation; however, I have read books that had
scenes that I thought should have had children but too few children when
not none.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

On Mon, 03 Oct 2022 21:43:34 -0700, Robert Woodward wrote:

> In article <17dc05dd-7699-49fc-9c61-a98bc6bc5865n@googlegroups.com>,
> Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 1:11:29 AM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
>>
>> > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
>> > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>>
>> A large percentage of the stories we read in today's news do not
>> mention children. Keeping children out of sight and out of the way of
>> important events doesn't strike me as unbelievable.
>
> It is not a general observation; however, I have read books that had
> scenes that I thought should have had children but too few children when
> not none.

One review of a current movie hit, the SF-ish "Don't Worry,
Darling" mentions the incongruity of its lack of children,
given the youthful demographics of the planned community that
is its setting.

On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
(in article<robertaw-976376.22112201102022@news.individual.net>):

> There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
>
> 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> perhaps empires could last a millennium).
>
> 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.

Problems that I have with SF, in particular:

1. Reactionless drives. Given the way that both gravity and magnetic fields
work, reactionless drives are a serious stretch. Reactionless drives abound
in SF. In some cases there’s reasoning beyond handwavium, but mostly they
just are. This is particularly evident in visual media in general, and
anything involving UFOs in particular. Trek, UFO, The Invaders and various
Star Wars imitators do this, as does assorted Marvel confections. Worse are
the stories, again usual visual media, where there are some kind of reaction
motors... but the motors are too small and there’s nowhere near enough
storage for reaction mass unless the exhaust velocities of said motors are
substantial fractions of c. Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999,
Babylon 5, and more all offend. Just look at the tankage for Space 1999’s
Eagles. What kind of delta-vee are you going to get with those pitiful tanks?
Star Wars and BattleStar are _worse_... and in Star Wars it’s canon that
the exhaust velocities are relatively low; in Rogue One, for example, the
exhausts blow people off ledges. Exhausts at the velocity necessary to get
observed delta-vees would incinerate anyone stupid enough to stand behind the
motor. E. E. Smith said it best: ‘Driving jets are weapons’. Larry Niven
has the kzinti learn The Human Lesson, the hard way. (They’re kzin, so it
takes a few applications to make it stick.) And no, it’s not just any
chemical reactions, such as burning liquid hydrogen in liquid oxygen.
High-velocity ion motors are particle beam weapons. Nasty ones. Controlled
thermonuclear rockets are (or would be, if we could build them) fusion bombs.
Photon rockets would be big, very big, lasers. David Drake’s RCN stories
get around the damage that the ship’s drives would do by (usually)
launching from water... but Drake makes a big thing out of how dangerous it
is to look at the ships’ exhausts as the ships climb away. Because it would
be, they’d be brighter than the Sun!

2. Ships which have their decks parallel to thrust. They’re built like
aircraft, or like ships on water. The decks should be at right angles to
thrust. Every. Single. Visual. Media. Ship, even Discovery in 2001, with the
sole exception of Hermes in The Martian, does this. All of them. They all
have magic gravity tech, even the Earth Force ships in Babylon 5, despite
their spin sections... and those spin sections should be locked in place when
the ship is under acceleration or there will be very strange,
nausea-inducing, effects. Even the otherwise excellent ships in The Expanse
have this problem.

3. Absurd kinetic effects. David Weber has magic reactionless drives which
generate hundreds or thousands of gees accelerations... and still put nukes
on his missiles. Yo! Slap that missile into something at a fair fraction of c
and you’ll have a blast! Meanwhile ships bank and roll and weave,
completely ignoring real-world mechanics. Babylon 5 and The Expanse, and, to
a lesser extent, Battlestar, pay some attention to reality. Star Wars and
Trek are complete fantasies, and not in a good way. Drake uses c-fractional
projectiles as the primary weapons in his RCN books; a hit can vaporize part
or all of a ship. (Drake kills off several promising characters by having
their ships stop a c-fractional projectile. Oops. Drake also has a
c-fractional projectile hit a planetary atmosphere, with spectacular but not
very effective results, you’re not using those things for plantary
bombardment. Weber didn’t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional
projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for planetary
bombardment. There would be a reason why I’ve stopped reading Honorverse
stories.)

In article <0001HW.28EC68D300BF843870000EBA638F@news.supernews.com>,
Wolffan <akwolffan@zoho.com> wrote:

> On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
> (in article<robertaw-976376.22112201102022@news.individual.net>):
>
> > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> > across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
> >
> > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> > many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> > or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> > of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> > outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> > can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> > perhaps empires could last a millennium).
> >
> > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>
> Problems that I have with SF, in particular:
>

<SNIP!>
>
> 3. Absurd kinetic effects. David Weber has magic reactionless drives which
> generate hundreds or thousands of gees accelerations... and still put nukes
> on his missiles. Yo! Slap that missile into something at a fair fraction of c
> and you’ll have a blast!

Ahem, the Honorverse has a handwave to explain why people on ships don't
feel the acceleration. Any number of warships have lost that handwave
(because of combat damage) and the crews died instantly. As far the
missiles, they have nuclear warheads so they can reach out and touch
someone.

<snip>

> Weber didn’t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional
> projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for planetary
> bombardment. There would be a reason why I’ve stopped reading Honorverse
> stories.)

I believe that projectiles he used for planetary bombardment were
pure-kinetic weapons, no nuclear warheads involved (I haven't tried to
calculate what the standoff range would be to get megaton yields, though
I would have to guess both acceleration and missile mass).

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> writes:
>In article <0001HW.28EC68D300BF843870000EBA638F@news.supernews.com>,
> Wolffan <akwolffan@zoho.com> wrote:
>

>> Weber didn’t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional
>> projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for planetary
>> bombardment. There would be a reason why I’ve stopped reading Honorverse
>> stories.)
>
>I believe that projectiles he used for planetary bombardment were
>pure-kinetic weapons, no nuclear warheads involved (I haven't tried to
>calculate what the standoff range would be to get megaton yields, though
>I would have to guess both acceleration and missile mass).

I've always been curious as to the actual effect of a nuclear
exposive in ship-to-ship warfare in space. So much of the damage
in atmosphere is due to the blast and thermal radiation.

Absent a direct hit, and
assuming the spacecraft has appropriate shielding for cosmic
radiation, what would be the effect on a spacecraft of a near
miss or direct hit by a megaton-class munition?

Ah, NASA to the rescue:

https://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm

So the lethal radius of a multimegaton nuclear explosion in
space for the emitted radiation is circa 100-miles; assuming
insufficent shielding on the target ship.

Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote in
news:robertaw-28140E.09541604102022@news.individual.net:

> In article
> <0001HW.28EC68D300BF843870000EBA638F@news.supernews.com>,
> Wolffan <akwolffan@zoho.com> wrote:
>
>> On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
>> (in
>> article<robertaw-976376.22112201102022@news.individual.net>):
>>
>> > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy
>> > story, I come across something that threatens to take me out
>> > of the story. For example:
>> >
>> > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy)
>> > that are many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on
>> > Earth have lasted 2 or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g.,
>> > a few don't survive the death of their founding conqueror and
>> > then there is Rome which is an extreme outlier in the other
>> > direction). There are reasons this happens and I can not see
>> > why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
>> > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of
>> > say 5, then perhaps empires could last a millennium).
>> >
>> > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books
>> > where the presence of children would be an plausible
>> > complicating factor.
>>
>> Problems that I have with SF, in particular:
>>
>
> <SNIP!>
>>
>> 3. Absurd kinetic effects. David Weber has magic reactionless
>> drives which generate hundreds or thousands of gees
>> accelerations... and still put nukes on his missiles. Yo! Slap
>> that missile into something at a fair fraction of c and
>> you’ll have a blast!
>
>
> Ahem, the Honorverse has a handwave to explain why people on
> ships don't feel the acceleration. Any number of warships have
> lost that handwave (because of combat damage) and the crews died
> instantly. As far the missiles, they have nuclear warheads so
> they can reach out and touch someone.

It's space opera. Expecting it to make sense in termso f modern
science is like wondering how Superman's powers work. Either you
accept it as fantasy, or you read something else.
>
> <snip>
>
>> Weber didn’t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional
>> projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for
>> planetary bombardment. There would be a reason why I’ve
>> stopped reading Honorverse stories.)

I stopped rading his stuff when he becamse too successful to be
edited, and starting publishing 400,000 word stream of
consciousness ramblings. What's in them doesn't matter.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at 12:54:22 PM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
> In article <0001HW.28EC68D300...@news.supernews.com>,
> Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com> wrote:
>
> > On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
> > (in article<robertaw-976376...@news.individual.net>):
> >
> > > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> > > across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
> > >
> > > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> > > many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> > > or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> > > of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> > > outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> > > can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> > > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> > > perhaps empires could last a millennium).
> > >
> > > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
> >
> > Problems that I have with SF, in particular:
> >
> <SNIP!>
> >
> > 3. Absurd kinetic effects. David Weber has magic reactionless drives which
> > generate hundreds or thousands of gees accelerations... and still put nukes
> > on his missiles. Yo! Slap that missile into something at a fair fraction of c
> > and you’ll have a blast!
> Ahem, the Honorverse has a handwave to explain why people on ships don't
> feel the acceleration. Any number of warships have lost that handwave
> (because of combat damage) and the crews died instantly. As far the
> missiles, they have nuclear warheads so they can reach out and touch
> someone.
>
> <snip>
> > Weber didn’t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional
> > projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for planetary
> > bombardment. There would be a reason why I’ve stopped reading Honorverse
> > stories.)
> I believe that projectiles he used for planetary bombardment were
> pure-kinetic weapons, no nuclear warheads involved (I haven't tried to
> calculate what the standoff range would be to get megaton yields, though
> I would have to guess both acceleration and missile mass).

Out of curiosity, I did.

A current US strategic warhead is the M87-1. It was on MX missiles, and is still
on Minuteman IIIs. It weighs about 270 kg, with a yield of 475 kilotons.

That's about 2x10^15 joules.

An online kinetic energy calculator tells me that that weight reaches that
amount of kinetic energy at a little under 4,000,000 meters/second, or 0.0133 c.

So even in weapons travelling at 'only' 0.1c, the extra Bang! provided by a nuclear
warhead is a rounding error, compared with the kinetic energy.

pt

"pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
>On Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at 12:54:22 PM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
>> In article <0001HW.28EC68D300...@news.supernews.com>,
>> Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com> wrote:=20
>>=20
<snip>
>> > Weber didn=E2=80=99t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional=20
>> > projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for planetary=20
>> > bombardment. There would be a reason why I=E2=80=99ve stopped reading H=
>onorverse=20
>> > stories.)
>> I believe that projectiles he used for planetary bombardment were=20
>> pure-kinetic weapons, no nuclear warheads involved (I haven't tried to=20
>> calculate what the standoff range would be to get megaton yields, though=
>=20
>> I would have to guess both acceleration and missile mass).
>
>Out of curiosity, I did.
>
>A current US strategic warhead is the M87-1. It was on MX missiles, and is =
>still
>on Minuteman IIIs. It weighs about 270 kg, with a yield of 475 kilotons.
>
>That's about 2x10^15 joules.
>
>An online kinetic energy calculator tells me that that weight reaches that
>amount of kinetic energy at a little under 4,000,000 meters/second, or 0.01=
>33 c.
>
>So even in weapons travelling at 'only' 0.1c, the extra Bang! provided by a=
> nuclear=20
>warhead is a rounding error, compared with the kinetic energy.

How much energy does it take to accelerate that 270kg to 0.1c?

On Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at 3:50:05 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> "pete...@gmail.com" <pete...@gmail.com> writes:
> >On Tuesday, October 4, 2022 at 12:54:22 PM UTC-4, Robert Woodward wrote:
> >> In article <0001HW.28EC68D300...@news.supernews.com>,
> >> Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com> wrote:=20
> >>=20
> <snip>
> >> > Weber didn=E2=80=99t get the memo, he _does_ use c-fractional=20
> >> > projectiles, nuclear-armed c-fractional projectiles, for planetary=20
> >> > bombardment. There would be a reason why I=E2=80=99ve stopped reading H=
> >onorverse=20
> >> > stories.)
> >> I believe that projectiles he used for planetary bombardment were=20
> >> pure-kinetic weapons, no nuclear warheads involved (I haven't tried to=20
> >> calculate what the standoff range would be to get megaton yields, though=
> >=20
> >> I would have to guess both acceleration and missile mass).
> >
> >Out of curiosity, I did.
> >
> >A current US strategic warhead is the M87-1. It was on MX missiles, and is =
> >still
> >on Minuteman IIIs. It weighs about 270 kg, with a yield of 475 kilotons.
> >
> >That's about 2x10^15 joules.
> >
> >An online kinetic energy calculator tells me that that weight reaches that
> >amount of kinetic energy at a little under 4,000,000 meters/second, or 0.01=
> >33 c.
> >
> >So even in weapons travelling at 'only' 0.1c, the extra Bang! provided by a=
> > nuclear=20
> >warhead is a rounding error, compared with the kinetic energy.
> How much energy does it take to accelerate that 270kg to 0.1c?

2.11x10^17 J

Pt

A science fiction story I read some time ago that
I had some problems with in regards to taking its
situation seriously recently came to mind.

The setting is a planet that was colonized by feminists.
There are men; they're required to remain on board ships
except during the mating season - they've been
genetically modified so that their sexual urges are present
only during this time, and they're dependent on women then.

They are discovered by the rest of the galaxy. And the rest
of the galaxy does not approve. But they won't use force to
overthrow the system; they will just keep sending volunteers
to the planet as immigrants. Even if the planet's rulers were
to choose to slaughter them, it would be changed by this.

I just could not relate to this.

1) Either you view the system in a society as unjust, in which case
it is licit to reform it by force, or you do not.

2) People, in general, want to live their lives in peace and raise
families and so on. Where do they expect to get volunteers to
be parachuted on to recalcitrant planets from?

And their ethical system that makes it a rule that no planet
can have its people speciate themselves from the rest of
humanity is bizarre. The foundation of morality is Thou
Shalt Not Initiate Force. This is a rule that doesn't derive
from that, or from the necessary limits to that rule that have
lead to taxes, conscription, and welfare programs.

But I can understand that in a work of science fiction,
the author might want to deal with a strange society, one
quite different from their own. The story didn't seem to have
a point, though; it might have been intended to show how
nonviolence might "work" as a way to enforce rules, but then
a more relatable setting would have allowed the point to
get across.

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:
> A science fiction story I read some time ago that
> I had some problems with in regards to taking its
> situation seriously recently came to mind.
>
> The setting is a planet that was colonized by feminists.
> There are men; they're required to remain on board ships
> except during the mating season - they've been
> genetically modified so that their sexual urges are present
> only during this time, and they're dependent on women then.
>
> They are discovered by the rest of the galaxy. And the rest
> of the galaxy does not approve. But they won't use force to
> overthrow the system; they will just keep sending volunteers
> to the planet as immigrants. Even if the planet's rulers were
> to choose to slaughter them, it would be changed by this.
>
> I just could not relate to this.

In Perry Rhodan 97 "Power's Price" ethnologist Dr Orge Olundson
investigates alien Soltenites' reputation as liars. ...

"Man, if I was a Soltenite I'd be a liar, too! I'd lie
right up to the rafters! The poor devils have to lie when
they're out anywhere in the Empire-they have to cover up
how ridiculous they must feel, being tied to 'mama's'
apron strings like they are!"
"Gyrating galaxies...!" Sikerman sought to scratch his
head but was blocked by his helmet which was back on his neck.
He turned quickly to his co-pilot. "Take over!" he said,
getting up. Still standing next to the flight console he
turned to the Swahili. "Dando, how did you come across that idea?"
"Excuse me, Colonel, but it gets to me when I think that a
Soltenite has to ask his wife for permission to even go beddy-by!
Don't you see? They'd have to lie like troopers when they're on
any other world where menfolks are at the helm! They have to
play the big man and come on strong like the others and they
probably overdo it so in the end they get made out to be liars.
And if the poor guys luck runs bad it gets back to the Squaw
Command that he's been struttin' high as cock o' the walk, man,
and those Arkon records show that he's in for a real strappin'
session back home! 'Course that there last part's no laughin'
matter, Colonel!"

###

In other news, the first three Master Publication stories are now
"under my belt."

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
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On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 3:30:31 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

> They are discovered by the rest of the galaxy. And the rest
> of the galaxy does not approve. But they won't use force to
> overthrow the system; they will just keep sending volunteers
> to the planet as immigrants. Even if the planet's rulers were
> to choose to slaughter them, it would be changed by this.

I see the story _wasn't_ Glory Season by David Brin, unless I
badly misremembered it.

John Savard

On 2022-10-01 11:11 p.m., Robert Woodward wrote:
> There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
>
> 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> outlier in the other direction).

And is also the most common model for interstellar empires in SF so
that's going to skew the statistics. Though, I wouldn't mind seeing
some patriot boast about representing a 5,000 year old empire only to
have the pedant say "Our empire is 270 years old. It's just founded on
the ruins of 8 previous empires who each pretended to be a continuation
of the first one despite periods of collapse and fragmentation that
lasted longer than our version of the empire is likely to."

There are reasons this happens and I
> can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> perhaps empires could last a millennium).
>
> 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>

3. Universes where in a galaxy rich in intelligent life, the only ones
who are good at fighting are the humans, and the enemies everyone else
wants humans to defend them from.

4. Any suggestion that herbivores as a class are innately either
pacifistic or cowardly

5. Anything that uses the term "post-scarcity"

On 2022-10-04 7:12 a.m., Wolffan wrote:
> On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
> (in article<robertaw-976376.22112201102022@news.individual.net>):
>
>> There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
>> across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
>>
>> 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
>> many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
>> or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
>> of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
>> outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
>> can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
>> (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
>> perhaps empires could last a millennium).
>>
>> 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
>> presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
>
> Problems that I have with SF, in particular:
>
> 1. Reactionless drives. Given the way that both gravity and magnetic fields
> work, reactionless drives are a serious stretch. Reactionless drives abound
> in SF. In some cases there’s reasoning beyond handwavium, but mostly they
> just are. This is particularly evident in visual media in general, and
> anything involving UFOs in particular. Trek, UFO, The Invaders and various
> Star Wars imitators do this, as does assorted Marvel confections. Worse are
> the stories, again usual visual media, where there are some kind of reaction
> motors... but the motors are too small and there’s nowhere near enough
> storage for reaction mass unless the exhaust velocities of said motors are
> substantial fractions of c.

Which is why I tolerate reactionless or pseudo-reactionless drives. The
only alternative is just to acknowledge the impracticality of long range
manned spaceflight.

Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999,
> Babylon 5, and more all offend. Just look at the tankage for Space 1999’s
> Eagles. What kind of delta-vee are you going to get with those pitiful tanks?
> Star Wars and BattleStar are _worse_... and in Star Wars it’s canon that
> the exhaust velocities are relatively low; in Rogue One, for example, the
> exhausts blow people off ledges. Exhausts at the velocity necessary to get
> observed delta-vees would incinerate anyone stupid enough to stand behind the
> motor.
E. E. Smith said it best: ‘Driving jets are weapons’. Larry Niven
> has the kzinti learn The Human Lesson, the hard way. (They’re kzin, so it
> takes a few applications to make it stick.) And no, it’s not just any
> chemical reactions, such as burning liquid hydrogen in liquid oxygen.
> High-velocity ion motors are particle beam weapons. Nasty ones. Controlled
> thermonuclear rockets are (or would be, if we could build them) fusion bombs.
> Photon rockets would be big, very big, lasers. David Drake’s RCN stories
> get around the damage that the ship’s drives would do by (usually)
> launching from water... but Drake makes a big thing out of how dangerous it
> is to look at the ships’ exhausts as the ships climb away. Because it would
> be, they’d be brighter than the Sun!
>
> 2. Ships which have their decks parallel to thrust. They’re built like
> aircraft, or like ships on water. The decks should be at right angles to
> thrust. Every. Single. Visual. Media. Ship, even Discovery in 2001,

2001's Discovery was fine. It's acceleration would have been minuscule
over the year or so it was in transit.

On 2022-10-05 3:30 a.m., Quadibloc wrote:
> A science fiction story I read some time ago that
> I had some problems with in regards to taking its
> situation seriously recently came to mind.
>
> The setting is a planet that was colonized by feminists.
> There are men; they're required to remain on board ships
> except during the mating season - they've been
> genetically modified so that their sexual urges are present
> only during this time, and they're dependent on women then.
>
> They are discovered by the rest of the galaxy. And the rest
> of the galaxy does not approve. But they won't use force to
> overthrow the system; they will just keep sending volunteers
> to the planet as immigrants. Even if the planet's rulers were
> to choose to slaughter them, it would be changed by this.
>
> I just could not relate to this.
>
> 1) Either you view the system in a society as unjust, in which case
> it is licit to reform it by force, or you do not.
>
> 2) People, in general, want to live their lives in peace and raise
> families and so on. Where do they expect to get volunteers to
> be parachuted on to recalcitrant planets from?

In a galaxy with a population of quintillions, a tiny proportion of the
desperate and idiotic would provide you with an endless stream of
sacrificial lambs for this kind of project.

>
> And their ethical system that makes it a rule that no planet
> can have its people speciate themselves from the rest of
> humanity is bizarre. The foundation of morality is Thou
> Shalt Not Initiate Force.

A foundation you discard without hesitation any time you view a society
as being unjust.

This is a rule that doesn't derive
> from that, or from the necessary limits to that rule that have
> lead to taxes, conscription, and welfare programs.

You are confusing immoral with unbelievable. It is 100% reasonable that
people will go to war (or apply various forms of economic or social
pressure) for reasons you don't approve of. It happens every day. It
may annoy you that fictional characters don't behave according to your
eccentric moral compass, but that's actually more believable than
expecting them. They presumably thing that speciation will eventually
lead to irreconcilable interstellar war. While I think that's a
wrong-headed idea, it's far less stupid than many religious conflicts of
the past thousand years.

>
> But I can understand that in a work of science fiction,
> the author might want to deal with a strange society, one
> quite different from their own. The story didn't seem to have
> a point, though; it might have been intended to show how
> nonviolence might "work" as a way to enforce rules, but then
> a more relatable setting would have allowed the point to
> get across.

If their goal is to prevent speciation, disrupting the planet's
isolation with illegal immigrants some of whom are liable to contaminate
the local gene pool is on point as a method of achieving that goal.

On Saturday, October 8, 2022 at 2:03:06 AM UTC-6, David Johnston wrote:
> On 2022-10-05 3:30 a.m., Quadibloc wrote:

> > And their ethical system that makes it a rule that no planet
> > can have its people speciate themselves from the rest of
> > humanity is bizarre. The foundation of morality is Thou
> > Shalt Not Initiate Force.

> A foundation you discard without hesitation any time you view a society
> as being unjust.

How can a society possibly be unjust, if its government doesn't initiate
force against its citizens? If so, its overthrow does not consitute
initiation of force.

Of course, though, your comment is *still* true, but not in the way that
I presume you intended it. Governments that go around overthrowing
foreign regimes that they dislike, even if they're despotic and fully
deserving of that fate... are governments that also *tax* and *conscript*,
they're not _libertarian_ regimes, which would have foreign policies like
that of, say, Costa Rica.

John Savard

On 08 Oct 2022, David Johnston wrote
(in article <thr9gt$1k01$1@gioia.aioe.org>):

> On 2022-10-04 7:12 a.m., Wolffan wrote:
> > On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
> > (in article<robertaw-976376.22112201102022@news.individual.net>):
> >
> > > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> > > across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
> > >
> > > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> > > many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> > > or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> > > of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> > > outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> > > can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> > > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> > > perhaps empires could last a millennium).
> > >
> > > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
> >
> > Problems that I have with SF, in particular:
> >
> > 1. Reactionless drives. Given the way that both gravity and magnetic fields
> > work, reactionless drives are a serious stretch. Reactionless drives abound
> > in SF. In some cases there’s reasoning beyond handwavium, but mostly they
> > just are. This is particularly evident in visual media in general, and
> > anything involving UFOs in particular. Trek, UFO, The Invaders and various
> > Star Wars imitators do this, as does assorted Marvel confections. Worse are
> > the stories, again usual visual media, where there are some kind of reaction
> > motors... but the motors are too small and there’s nowhere near enough
> > storage for reaction mass unless the exhaust velocities of said motors are
> > substantial fractions of c.
>
> Which is why I tolerate reactionless or pseudo-reactionless drives. The
> only alternative is just to acknowledge the impracticality of long range
> manned spaceflight.

Pournelle’s CoDo and Empire had photon rockets. Really nice exhaust
velocities. Really bad thrust unless you indulge in massive handwavium, which
he did, and it would be a Really Bad Idea to stand behind them, which is one
reason for the, ahem, Langston Field. Otherwise you’d be rebuilding your
launch facility with every takeoff, and landings would be... interesting.
Drake has two different drives in his RCN books: the plasma thrusters, which
are bad enough, but can be used in an atmosphere if you’re careful, and the
High Drive: anti-matter/matter annihilation. Very bad idea in an atmosphere.
Very high exhaust velocities, substantial fraction of c, very good thrust.
Just don’t get too close to the exhaust bells. Niven and Heinlein had
fusion rockets. Not as good exhaust velocity as Drake and Pournelle, but nice
thrust. Of course you essentially have a continuous thermonuclear explosion
going off aft, so it is a Really Bad Idea to get close to the exhaust bells
there, too. Pournelle, Drake, Niven, and Heinlein all put thought into
tankage, their dhips had significant amounts of reaction mass. It was a plot
point in several CoDo and RCN stories. The boys behind the Expanse also used
fusion rockets, but were more handwavium about it. When asked how efficient
their fusion rockets were, the only answer was ‘very’. There were a few
plot points involving available reaction mass in the various Expanse books,
too.
>
>
> Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999,
> > Babylon 5, and more all offend. Just look at the tankage for Space 1999’s
> > Eagles. What kind of delta-vee are you going to get with those pitiful
> > tanks?
> > Star Wars and BattleStar are _worse_... and in Star Wars it’s canon that
> > the exhaust velocities are relatively low; in Rogue One, for example, the
> > exhausts blow people off ledges. Exhausts at the velocity necessary to get
> > observed delta-vees would incinerate anyone stupid enough to stand behind
> > the
> > motor.
> E. E. Smith said it best: ‘Driving jets are weapons’. Larry Niven
> > has the kzinti learn The Human Lesson, the hard way. (They’re kzin, so it
> > takes a few applications to make it stick.) And no, it’s not just any
> > chemical reactions, such as burning liquid hydrogen in liquid oxygen.
> > High-velocity ion motors are particle beam weapons. Nasty ones. Controlled
> > thermonuclear rockets are (or would be, if we could build them) fusion
> > bombs.
> > Photon rockets would be big, very big, lasers. David Drake’s RCN stories
> > get around the damage that the ship’s drives would do by (usually)
> > launching from water... but Drake makes a big thing out of how dangerous it
> > is to look at the ships’ exhausts as the ships climb away. Because it
> > would
> > be, they’d be brighter than the Sun!
> >
> > 2. Ships which have their decks parallel to thrust. They’re built like
> > aircraft, or like ships on water. The decks should be at right angles to
> > thrust. Every. Single. Visual. Media. Ship, even Discovery in 2001,
>
> 2001's Discovery was fine. It's acceleration would have been minuscule
> over the year or so it was in transit.

It still annoys me when I see the windows on the bow.

In article <0001HW.28F1B2CE01FCDD25700001A6738F@news.supernews.com>,
Wolffan <akwolffan@zoho.com> wrote:
>
>Pournelle's CoDo and Empire had photon rockets. Really nice
>exhaust velocities. Really bad thrust unless you indulge in
>massive handwavium, which he did, and it would be a Really
>Bad Idea to stand behind them, which is one reason for the,
ahem, Langston Field. Otherwise you'd be rebuilding your
>launch facility with every takeoff, and landings would be...
>interesting.

The big ships like the MacArthur didn't launch from the ground,
which is very good for the continents of Imperial worlds.

The tramp freighter in McEnroe's The Shattered Stars used
a photon drive, which did get used in the atmosphere. At
least the captain waited until he was over open sea (as
I recall) to turn on the photon drive. In any case, it
meant a man in desperate financial straits was allowed to
fly around with an impressive WMD.

Albedo offered something even worse than a photon drive:
a total conversion system with the TC version of a positive
void coefficient. Lose control of the reaction while on a
planet and the whole planet would be converted to energy.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
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My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

In article <thr92l$1dli$1@gioia.aioe.org>,
David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 2022-10-01 11:11 p.m., Robert Woodward wrote:
> > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> > across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
> >
> > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> > many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> > or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> > of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> > outlier in the other direction).
>
> And is also the most common model for interstellar empires in SF so
> that's going to skew the statistics. Though, I wouldn't mind seeing
> some patriot boast about representing a 5,000 year old empire only to
> have the pedant say "Our empire is 270 years old. It's just founded on
> the ruins of 8 previous empires who each pretended to be a continuation
> of the first one despite periods of collapse and fragmentation that
> lasted longer than our version of the empire is likely to."
>

The various Chinese dynasties are something like that.

> There are reasons this happens and I
> > can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> > perhaps empires could last a millennium).
> >
> > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
> >
>
> 3. Universes where in a galaxy rich in intelligent life, the only ones
> who are good at fighting are the humans, and the enemies everyone else
> wants humans to defend them from.
>

I haven't noticed that many, but it is annoying.

> 4. Any suggestion that herbivores as a class are innately either
> pacifistic or cowardly
>

Since herd herbivores on this planet have a habit of stomping careless
carnivores into the mud, I also find this suggestion to be ignorant at
best.

> 5. Anything that uses the term "post-scarcity"

From the point of view of a Bronze Age culture, WE are post-scarcity
(alas, it not might be sustainable).

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

On Saturday, October 8, 2022 at 8:29:59 AM UTC-5, Wolffan wrote:
> On 08 Oct 2022, David Johnston wrote
> (in article <thr9gt$1k01$1...@gioia.aioe.org>):
> > On 2022-10-04 7:12 a.m., Wolffan wrote:
> > > On 02 Oct 2022, Robert Woodward wrote
> > > (in article<robertaw-976376...@news.individual.net>):
> > >
> > > > There are times, when reading a Science Fiction or Fantasy story, I come
> > > > across something that threatens to take me out of the story. For example:
> > > >
> > > > 1) Human empires (interstellar in SF, otherwise in Fantasy) that are
> > > > many centuries old. Generally speaking, empires on Earth have lasted 2
> > > > or 3 centuries. There are outliers (e.g., a few don't survive the death
> > > > of their founding conqueror and then there is Rome which is an extreme
> > > > outlier in the other direction). There are reasons this happens and I
> > > > can not see why those reasons wouldn't apply to an interstellar empire
> > > > (note that if human lifespans are increased by a factor of say 5, then
> > > > perhaps empires could last a millennium).
> > > >
> > > > 2) I have noticed a lack of children in a number of books where the
> > > > presence of children would be an plausible complicating factor.
> > >
> > > Problems that I have with SF, in particular:
> > >
> > > 1. Reactionless drives. Given the way that both gravity and magnetic fields
> > > work, reactionless drives are a serious stretch. Reactionless drives abound
> > > in SF. In some cases there’s reasoning beyond handwavium, but mostly they
> > > just are. This is particularly evident in visual media in general, and
> > > anything involving UFOs in particular. Trek, UFO, The Invaders and various
> > > Star Wars imitators do this, as does assorted Marvel confections. Worse are
> > > the stories, again usual visual media, where there are some kind of reaction
> > > motors... but the motors are too small and there’s nowhere near enough
> > > storage for reaction mass unless the exhaust velocities of said motors are
> > > substantial fractions of c.
> >
> > Which is why I tolerate reactionless or pseudo-reactionless drives. The
> > only alternative is just to acknowledge the impracticality of long range
> > manned spaceflight.
> Pournelle’s CoDo and Empire had photon rockets. Really nice exhaust
> velocities. Really bad thrust unless you indulge in massive handwavium, which
> he did, and it would be a Really Bad Idea to stand behind them, which is one
> reason for the, ahem, Langston Field. Otherwise you’d be rebuilding your
> launch facility with every takeoff, and landings would be... interesting.
> Drake has two different drives in his RCN books: the plasma thrusters, which
> are bad enough, but can be used in an atmosphere if you’re careful, and the
> High Drive: anti-matter/matter annihilation. Very bad idea in an atmosphere.
> Very high exhaust velocities, substantial fraction of c, very good thrust..
> Just don’t get too close to the exhaust bells. Niven and Heinlein had
> fusion rockets. Not as good exhaust velocity as Drake and Pournelle, but nice
> thrust. Of course you essentially have a continuous thermonuclear explosion
> going off aft, so it is a Really Bad Idea to get close to the exhaust bells
> there, too. Pournelle, Drake, Niven, and Heinlein all put thought into
> tankage, their ships had significant amounts of reaction mass. It was a plot
> point in several CoDo and RCN stories. The boys behind the Expanse also used
> fusion rockets, but were more handwavium about it. When asked how efficient
> their fusion rockets were, the only answer was ‘very’. There were a few
> plot points involving available reaction mass in the various Expanse books,
> too.
> >
Where did Heinlein use fusion rockets? He used nuclear fission thermal rockets
in _The Rolling Stones_ and many other juveniles and _Future History_ stories,
and he used mass to energy conversion rockets, called "torch ships", in
_Farmer in the Sky_ and _Time for the Stars_. The ships in _Citizen of the Galaxy_
had fusion reactors but were not rockets.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist